Tuesday, 11 December 2012

On a cold, crisp Saturday morning in December close to a
thousand people gathered in the car park at Lulworth Cove for the Dorset leg of
the Endurance LifeCoastal Trail Series.
With four races to choose from, ranging from 10k to ultra distance there
is something for everyone, provided hills, mud and hard running are what you
are looking for.

Endurance Life as usual had everything well organised;
registration was quick and simple; complimentary CLIF bar and free t-shirt in
hand we headed off to change.

We were signed up for the half marathon, which it turns out
was the popular race of the day as over 400 participants lined up at the
start. Endurance Life can’t count too
well and so our Half Marathon was in fact to be held on a 15 mile route.

Late as always I was stood by the car getting ready as we
heard the countdown, luckily the queue to cross the line was such that we had
plenty of time. No standard start
possible with this many people, each runner dipped their timing chip as they
crossed the start.

The course started as it meant to go on – with a hill. Fast walking was the order of the day, this hill was just about run-able
but with so many people in front of us walking was easier and a good warm up
for the fun to come.

There followed an undulating path along some of the most
beautiful coastline this country has to offer, passing the famous landmark of
Durdle Door along the way. After three
miles the course turned inland, passing the first checkpoint. Here we were treated to rolling hills leading
gradually back to the start. Passing
back through the village we headed east into the Lulworth firing range.

As it turns out the first few hills were just a warm up; now
the main challenges of the course began.
A five hundred foot slog up the first serious climb with a thigh-busting
descent back down was compensated by incredible views to Lulworth Castle from
the summit. This pattern was repeated
until we found ourselves at Tyneham village, evacuated during the war, the
residents never allowed to return after the land was requisitioned by the
MOD. I tried to run the gradual hill out
of the village to checkpoint two but by now fatigue was starting to kick in and
soon I was walking again. At the
checkpoint I stopped to top up my water and helped myself to some jelly babies
on offer.

My Garmin told me we had come twelve and a half miles, so
just under three to go. We had seen the
leaders returning along the way they had come and I had assumed that we would
reverse our tracks, and therefore all of the hills, on the way home. Thankfully
the course remained on top of the ridge line after the first hill, which was a
great relief. As fifteen miles
approached though, there was still no sign of the finish. Telling myself not to worry, just keep
running, I concentrated on closing the gap on the runner in front of me. Eventually we dropped into Lulworth. With only a few hundred yards to go I tried
to sprint up the hill before my legs rebelled and I was forced to return to a
slow shuffle across the line. My Garmin
read 16.2 miles.

All in all a great day out was had on a wonderful course. If you fancy a challenge, I’d recommend you
give an Endurance Life event a try sometime, you might just surprise yourself. The
next leg is in Angelsey which is a bit far for me but I’ll be back in February
for the South Devon Half Marathon.

Friday, 7 December 2012

Having recently started a marathon training plan and struggled to know the difference between a tempo run and a fartlek, much less why I would want to do one or the other I found yesterday's post by Jason at Strength running to be very useful. He's created a free e-book called "52 workouts, 52 weeks".This aims to provide the reader with some variation in a stagnated schedule by offering a variety of workouts from long runs to sprints. As Jason says, doing one per week and working through the book is not the name of the game; rather we should pick routines that suit the goal in mind and use them appropriately.To me though this book also serves to underline what a tempo run should represent (i.e. how hard compared to a normal run), how exactly to complete a run that my plan describes as "Start slow, finish fast" and just how many seconds I should consider sprinting up a hill before I can stop and jog back down again.So its really a good tool for beginners, uninformed intermediates and jaded experts it seems. The e-book is here